Chapter 2

Dismembered body... bronze figure...

I doubled over and started dry-heaving. Nothing came up, just the bitter taste of bile burning my throat.

"Leo! My baby! No—!"

Sarah’s screams tore through the air, heartbreaking and wild.

She fought frantically, trying to break past the officers guarding the horrifying scene.

Seeing this, a detective walked over to question us.

"Are you family of the missing child?"

Sarah’s eyes were blank as she nodded.

"Our initial assessment is a male child. We need an autopsy to be sure. When was the last time you saw Leo?"

Sarah was crying too hard to speak, only sobbing out "yesterday morning" and "birthday party."

I forced myself to stand straight.

"Detective, Leo... he didn't come to my daughter's birthday party yesterday. We didn't invite him."

Detective Carter’s sharp eyes locked onto me.

"No invitation? Then why did the boy say he was coming to the party?"

"I don't know..."

I shook my head, utterly lost. Then I remembered what my daughter had said this morning, and a chill ran down my spine.

"But... my daughter said she and Leo had a plan. They were going to explore this area today."

"Your daughter?" Detective Carter frowned deeply.

He crouched down, keeping his voice as gentle as possible.

"Hey there. Your name is Lily, right? Can you tell me, did you and Leo plan to come here? When did you talk about it?"

Lily looked up from my arms, her big eyes brimming with tears.

"It was... yesterday... during the party. He whispered it to me... told me to meet him here for a big game of hide-and-seek. He said he had a surprise for me."

"At the party?"

Ethan and I spoke at the same time, exchanging glances of pure shock.

We had been there the entire time. We never saw Leo!

Detective Carter stood up, his gaze turning even darker.

"When was the party? Where did you host it? Can you provide a list of everyone who attended?"

His eyes swept over us, then drifted back to the police tape.

"Also, we found this near the body."

He gestured, and a gloved officer walked over holding a plastic evidence bag.

Inside was the headless bronze figure.

The jagged, broken neck was clear. Every detail matched the broken figure on the music box at our house.

I gasped and stumbled back as if looking at something cursed.

"That... that's ours..."

Lily’s voice shook violently.

I wanted to cover her mouth, but it was too late.

"This morning, one of the bronze figures on my daughter's music box... its head was broken off just like that..."

My entire body went rigid.

Ethan looked up sharply.

"How is this... such a coincidence? One figure breaks, and a real child dies..."

On the way back, my hands trembled on the steering wheel.

"Maybe it's just a... a sick coincidence! It has to be a copycat killer... mimicking... yeah, mimicking the music box!"

I tried to find a logical explanation, but it sounded pathetic.

Who could possibly know about the music box and its broken piece so quickly?

And place an identical bronze figure at the crime scene right away?

Unless... the person who broke our toy was the killer himself?

Was he in our house last night?

The thought felt like ice water dumping over my head, freezing me to the bone.

I looked at my daughter. She was dead silent.

Her face looked almost like a stranger's in the shifting shadows of the car window.

"Mom, I really saw Leo at the party yesterday. Didn't you guys see him?"

Leo was there yesterday... and then he left...